The Girl and the Snake
by angel0wonder
Summary: What happens to Alphard after the final showdown? What is her reason for living? Alphard's thoughts as she lies at the bottom of the ravine halfdead, broken and bleeding after her fall. A character analysis.


A/N- Kinda spoilery for anyone who has not seen the last episode of _CANAAN_. Okay, a lot spoilery. If you don't want to know how the final showdown ends, don't read this.

Was just wondering how the hell Alphard survived that fall (not that I'm complaining). Also I've never played the game the anime is based on so any inconsistencies are entirely my fault. Alphard's thoughts as she laid at the bottom of a ravine after she shot her arm off. A character analysis.

* * *

_Canaan clasped Alphard's wrist and hung onto the train with her other hand with all her might, preventing the other from falling to her death hundreds of feet below into the river. Their joined limbs made the rival's matching tattoo's appear as one. The muscles on Canaan's arms bulged from the strain and she ground her teeth together to keep from falling off the top of the train along with her arch enemy. Alphard's face displayed pure disbelief. Just a second ago they were trying to kill each other and the next she had lost her balance and found herself falling off the edge of the train until a hand shot out to snatch her own out of the air. Now she was left dangling, wind whipping against her body from the speed they were traveling._

_"Why? If I die history won't have to repeat itself! And you'll be free from Siam's ghost!" Alphard could not comprehend the other other girl's actions. All this time she had been trying to accomplish that very goal; to rid of every trace of Siam's despair._

_"You're always a weird color." the synesthetic responded, her voice strained from holding onto Alphard's arm. "Sometimes it's light brown like Siam's. And today it's white as snow. I've finally come to understand why. That's because you're already dead. From the moment Siam died your heart died with him. But I'm different!" Canaan's voice poured with emotion, pleading... no, ordering Alphard to listen to her. "Since that day I've met a lot of different people. Time never stopped for me on that day!" Alphard listened with wide eyes, staring with angry incomprehension._

_"Your heart has already died! The right to decide is still in the hands of those who are still alive. And I'm alive. And as a person who's alive, I order you to quit dying!" Canaan declared fiercely, striking Alphard into silence. "I won't let you die. If I can't save anyone today, it'll be just like on that day. I don't care if you're the one I have to save!"_

'Liang, you were right'_, Alphard thought in resignation._ 'I'm entrapped by the past. I always thought that if I created a monster like Canaan I... I would be able to get closer to Siam? Canaan was freed from Siam's ghost and that repeating day a long time ago... But I'm still...'

_"We have the same name... we have the same tattoo..." Alphard stated. Canaan's grip slipped ever so slightly and the younger girl grunted to keep her grip on Alphard. She shifted her weight and made a gun fall off the edge of the speeding train with a nudge of a leg. The gun seemed to just land in Alphard's hand, as if fate was granting her the decision on how to end this encounter. Canaan's eyes widened in sudden fear while Alphard smirked at her enemy. "Siam, you're always coiling around me. I'll release myself from the curse of the snake!" She pointed the gun directly at Canaan's head, who was unable to do anything because she refused to release Alphard's arm. Canaan's white eyes stared into Alphard's steel ones. Suddenly those sharp eyes softened and Alphard pointed the gun at her own arm... and pulled the trigger._

_The bullet ripped through the skin of her arm. The next one shattered the bone. And she didn't stop pulling the trigger, her own blood splashing onto Canaan's shocked face as well as her own emotionless one. She didn't stop pulling that trigger until her very weight ripped her away from her limb and she fell off the train, her now useless arm still gripped in Canaan's defeated hand._

_.-.-._

Nothingness. Yes, she had released herself from the curse of the snake. But when the snake that had coiled around her soul finally released its grip, nothing was left. The soul already had the life choked out of it and all that was left was blank space. The body that fell lifelessly was but a broken vessel. But she was okay with that. Alphard could not help but feel relief as she fell rapidly down down down, the rock faces on either side of her blurring. The river seemed to rush up to greet her and she embraced it with open arms before the impact made her unaware of anything except darkness...

One second she was sinking into oblivion and the next she was being yanked back into the light as if someone had once again caught her hand in the nick of time...

Alphard choked and gagged, coughing up river water on her chin and chest. She had to turn her head to the side and vomit up her stomach. Not a pleasant way to enter the state of wakefulness. She sucked in air fully now, still coughing, pain wracking her chest. She had coughed so hard she felt as though her ribs would burst through her chest. Every shivering breath hurt, which made her breath heavier which just resulted in more pain in a cruel cycle. Alphard's body appeared as though she had been tossed away like a flimsy rag doll by a hurricane. She was washed up on shore at the edge of the river in which she had fallen. When she had fallen in, her body had been thrashed, beaten and thrown against stones as if she was chewed up by nature and spit out. And yet her chest lifted and fell. It was a miracle in itself that she was even alive, but she would hardly be able to call that fact a gift. The next twenty four hours were critical in determining whether she lived or died.

After heaving up the last of anything she finally fell back against sand and was able to open her sharp grey eyes slightly. The night sky greeted her. The hydra constellation shone and her eyes managed to focus and gaze on the brightest isolated star in the constellation to which she was named after,_ Alphard_.

Loneliness. The woman's mind clung to that single thought before she passed out again, the fatigue in her body combined with unbelievable dizziness proved too much even for the invincible Alphard. She wasn't expecting to ever wake up again.

.-.-.

Eyes... Blank eyes stared at Alphard accusingly. The terrorist was standing in the middle of it all, surrounded by pairs of eyes of those whose lives she has ended. She had never cared if these people's blood spilled over her hands as she mercilessly dealt them her deigning punishment. But now, she felt... shame? She couldn't identify the feeling since it was so foreign to her.

"Get away from me!" Alphard ordered, her normally strong commanding voice cracking much to her disgust. Instead of disappearing, their bodies started to materialize before her. Other soldiers, all the borners and unblooms, Liang Qi, Siam... "Stay back!" She pulled a gun out of her long coat and pointed it at the crowd of people. Instead of heeding her warning, they started slowly advancing on her. "Don't..." Alphard's voice came out young and vulnerable. The gun started shaking in her unsteady grip. "Don't..." she started shrinking away from their reaching hands. "DON'T FUCK WITH ME!" Alphard spat at them before pulling the trigger and shooting at anyone who came within range. But the bullets passed right through them like they were ghosts and they didn't stop coming. She screamed in rage and kept firing at her victims.

"Alphard," she froze when Siam spoke to her, gun pointed directly between his eyes, just like on that day... He gazed at her with those fearless eyes that had always pissed her off. "Alphard, the only person who can break you is yourself," He narrowed his eyes at her in disappointment. "And you have certainly broken." The moment he said that the skin around her fingers gripping the gun cracked like glass. Alphard stared with a horrified expression as the cracks traveled up her arm, shards dropping off her as they went. Her whole body was breaking apart like a fragile china doll. She tried to scream but nothing came out and she was shattering she was breaking up into nothing and all they did was fucking stare oh god why was this happening someone stop this she couldn't she couldn't do anything someone anyone help...

And then a kind face broke through the horror and she was cradled in warmth.

"...Okaason?"

She felt as if she was ripped from the nightmare by a giant bringing down a sledgehammer on her vulnerable body. With a gasp she jerked upright and cried out at the sudden movement. A vulture jumped back in surprise and squawked in indigence. She stared at it from swollen eyes, eyes that had taken a beating from the butt of Canaan's gun. Even half dead, the iciness in her eyes was still there and the vulture flew off to perch on a bare tree across the river, willing to be patient for that iciness to die away. The warmth of the morning sun was shining down on the ex-terrorist, calming down the violent shivers Alphard had experienced while dreaming during the night and drying the layer of salt from the river.

The stare-down seemed to have exhausted the crime boss and she hung her head. Her breathing was irregular since each breath felt like a stab of pain in her side and chest, indicating broken ribs.

It was then that the woman hesitantly looked at her arm. Alphard held up her arm to her face, or what was left of it. She had shot through the area between her shoulder and her elbow. It was numb, and the blood still pouring out of the end and pooling at her side didn't seem real. The bits of flesh dangling from the stump savaged and shredded didn't seem real. She caught a glimpse of the bone, splintered grotesquely like a broken branch that bled. It was just nothing. If the fall didn't kill her and the river failed to finish her off, then this surely will. The blood loss will literally drain her of what little life she had left. She had the phantom feeling of tightening her non-existent fist at the resolve to die.

Death. It meant nothing to her. She had already died long ago, any inkling of herself gone with Siam's ghost. She fell back against the sand, feeling the cold water lap at her feet and the warm blood at her side. Canaan's voice echoed through her head "You're already dead! And as a person who is alive I order you to stop dying!" Alphard couldn't help but smirk at that. What Canaan didn't know that in order for that to happen she had to point the gun at her own arm. She had to pull that trigger over and over again. She had to eliminate the source of the poison spreading through her body.

Canaan didn't save her, she saved herself. Perhaps she still had too much a sense of pride to have Canaan ordering her around. She laughed at that. She would rather shoot her own arm off than listen to the synesthetic. That was funny to her for some reason. And then she couldn't stop laughing. Her laugh became too loud, too hysterical, and too painful for her aching ribs since tears ran down her face and into the already moist sand. She laughed and cried and she didn't know why and she couldn't stop. After a few moments her laughing dissolved to just crying, something she would normally abhor and scorn.

Always upholding a Spartan way of life, the crime boss shunned emotions all together. Displays of strength were her forte. One of the reasons she had come to despise Liang Qi was because of the other woman's blatant obsessive love for her as well as Cumming's fruitless pursuit of the deranged woman. Maybe since Alphard was so weak... so vulnerable in this moment near death that she finally cried. All the pain that had accumulated throughout her life, every emotion she had ever repressed rose to the surface along with the blood spilling out of her.

Was she mourning? Mourning herself? Mourning the Canaan that she was and the Alphard she had become? That's bullshit, she concluded. Her whole life and reason for living was bullshit. Canaan had her light, her friend. What did she have? The hollow in her chest where the snake used to lay. This thinking wasn't getting her nowhere. Why couldn't she just physically die already?

The flapping of wings was heard briefly and she managed to look over to see several other vultures had gathered in the bare tree. Together they seemed like a black mass of death, with all their ugly mugs pointed at her and their beady eyes glaring at her. It felt almost as if their will for her to die was bearing down on her as she stared and the leader of the Snakes had to look away. The constant pounding of her head and the throb of her body melted her thoughts away and she could only groan in pain and take it while she waited for death to take her to hell or oblivion.

Soon the sun was high enough overhead that it was a pure white disk that she was nearly blinded from it. Her good arm was thrown over her eyes as flies began buzzing around her head and bad arm. Her lips have chapped and cracked from dryness and lack of water. The blood loss had begun to take its toll on her body, making her breathing more shallow and skin paler. She was far too dizzy to think straight. Her mind a blank buzz, too tired even to deal with thoughts. She spent the hours going in and out of consciousness and keeping an eye out for those vultures when she could. Her arm had mostly stopped bleeding, now just a steady ooze through all the dried blood and dirt that caked the wound. The big black birds crept closer and closer every hour as they felt death draw nearer.

One of the braver birds jumped from his perch and landed next to the almost-carcass. The pathetic creature rotting away on the shore barely breathed, its heartbeat slowing steadily. The smell of its blood... The vulture approached and pecked at a pant leg. The dying creature didn't move. Another bird landed next to the brave one with a 'fwoop' of its wings. The creature groaned and shifted in the sun but otherwise didn't do more. Another bird landed on the shore and swaggered over, immediately going for the stump of a limb and tearing off a strip of flesh there. At this action the entire flock pounced on the body, wings flapping, claws tearing and beaks pecking.

Alphard woke from the peace of unconsciousness with a shout of pain and she instinctively punched one of the stupid birds off her, making the others scatter but not fly away. The ex-terrorst glared at the disgusting creatures and bared her teeth with a feral growl, blood running down the side of her face from a peck one of the birds deliviered. The birds started backing off, sqwuaking in protest that their expected meal could still move.

"Fuck off!" she managed to snarl, voice scratchy but still capable of spitting venom. She threw a hand full of dirt at them and they finally flew away to circle overhead. Alphard stared at them helplessly, what little energy she had stored practically sapped from fending the damned things off. "Shit..." she muttered. Couldn't a woman die in peace around here? Her eyes started rolling to the back of her head and she would have passed out again if she didn't hold herself upright with her good arm. The raven haired woman took deep breaths while fighting off the darkness edging into the corners of her vision. She couldn't stay here, she knew that. The sun was getting clouded over with dark angry clouds, signaling a storm was coming. And she had to find shelter away from those damned vultures. The elite crime leader made a move to stand but her legs failed her and she collapsed onto her front with a pained grunt, new explosions of agony blooming in her abdomen from her broken ribs. She wasn't going anywhere. A distant clap of thunder boomed overhead.

Alphard Alshua has literally hit rock bottom. The thought almost brought the trademark smirk back to her face.

At this moment a drop of memory made ripples in her mind. After all this time her mind brought her back back back into her past. Beyond Siam... she had had a... family? She never thought about those times... They had been killed in a war in the Middle East. She had a mother, a father, siblings... Why was she thinking about them now? A kind face, and warmth... and love... She had forgotten what those things had felt like.

Was this it? Was it time for her death? Is that why she was recalling what felt like ancient history?

A drop of water from the sky landed on the skin of her back. It felt it like it was very far away. One drop turned into a few more until a downpour seemed to have been switched on. And with each drop brought a certain amount of alertness to Alphard's foggy mind.

_No_, she thought._ I haven't died_... She vaguely recalled her mother's smiling face right before she had died from a bombing. Alphard had brought her flowers one day, a rare thing in the desert which she had fought other kids in the small village for and won. She had come home swelling and bleeding but proudly holding up the blooming desert blossom, tossled from the fight. Her mother had cried but smiled and she never knew or understood why. Part of that little girl, tossed aside alone and forgotten in the recesses of the new killer's mind, was still there. _I'm still here... _

Alphard Alshua rose her head from the now muddy ground and turned her head to the sky. Her steel grey eyes closed as she felt the water wash over her wounds and aching body, the cold numbing the pain and bringing back her awareness. Her mouth opened, accepting the grace bestowed upon her and she drank greedily.

Yes, the snake was dead. It had taken the death of the snake for her to remember the person who she used to be. That girl she thought had died long ago along with her family. But that love was still there. That warmth her mother had displayed that had saved her today had been there for years, waiting for the killer in her soul to kill itself. No, she wasn't dead yet. The _Canaan_ in her hasn't died yet.

After slowly drinking water from the sky, the Alphard looked around at her surroundings and she spotted greenery near her. Her survival training was finally starting to kick in now that she decided she wanted to survive. Slowly she crawled toward the bush, careful not to use her useless stump of an arm or put pressure on her ribs. When she reached the bush she scouted out some berries growing on the underside of the leaves and she picked at them and stuffed them in her mouth. The start of a smile formed on the woman's lips as she fed herself the nutrients to assist her to survive this.

She would need shelter. She had to get some sort of tourniquet around her arm, and fast. Through the curtain of rain she spotted a hollow in the cliff face. She would need food. She absently heard the squawk of one of the vultures nearby and smiled cruelly; good thing she always kept a knife on her person. Somehow she would have to collect the rainwater to drink. She would need fire, bandages... It was sounding exhausting already.

Using her good arm she braced herself on the ground, grinding her teeth together as she forced herself on all three, then on two. Alphard stood on shaky rubbery legs and she stumbled. But the mercenary forced herself upright with sheer strength of will. The woman swayed slightly on her feet and she gripped her injured arm tightly to stop blood flow, but she was standing. Her raven hair dripped on her face and her clothes were mostly missing or shredded to pieces. Her skin was too pale and she was cut up and bleeding in places from the vulture attack and she couldn't seem to stop shivering from the cold rain. But on her lips was a hint of a smile and in her eyes held the fire and determination only Alphard could possess.

The hope Siam had seen in her all those years ago lived on, and so she would live on. She almost couldn't wait to see the look on Canaan's face...


End file.
